Cover Love ... by Stephanie Julian

As a writer, the second hardest part of writing a book for me is opening the file with my as-yet-unseen cover. It's the biggest part of creating a book that I have no control over. And to me, that's scary. Writing is all about control. Your characters. Your world. Your words.

It literally took me several minutes to work up the courage to open the file for the first book in my Magical Seduction series, Seduced by Magic. What if the artist hadn't captured the image as I saw it in my head? What if I hated it? What if I the guy totally turned me off or the girl made me want to cringe?

Finally, I made myself click that file and I gasped...in wonder. Look at it and tell me that is not a beautiful cover. It's gorgeous. I was thrilled. And relieved. And I thought, how perfect.

Now, that cover in no way resembled what I had filled out on the cover art request form. I don't remember word for word what I wrote, but I do remember writing something about wings. And artist Les Byerly took that one word and crafted a cover that fits the book absolutely. It remains my favorite cover, simply because I adore those wings.

For Seduced by Magic, I had a distinct image in mind when I filled out the cover request. But when I wrote the request for Edge of Moonlight, the latest book in my Lucani Lovers series, I had no clue what I thought that cover should look like. It's a werewolf book. Maybe a wolf? A hot guy?

What did I get? A cool-looking chick (in fur!!) and an atmospheric shot with a tiny little guy in the background. But that cover, by cover-artist-goddess Syneca, so perfectly expresses the mood of the story, I think she must have crawled inside my head, dug around for a while and pulled this out of my subconscious. That woman is Kaine. How the hell did Syneca know that?

In the course of two years, I've gotten one or two covers that made me go, hmm, yeah, not exactly what I was hoping for. But those have been few and far between. And one has been my biggest-selling book. Go figure.

What A Goddess Wants, the first book in my Forgotten Goddesses series with Sourcebooks Casablanca, won't be out until July 2011 but my cover has already been produced. Before the book was even completed, which totally blew my mind.

I wondered how an artist could come up with a cover for a book that I didn't even have a handle on completely.

Once again, I hesitated before opening the file and again, I gasped in absolute delight. Gorgeous, isn't it? I think so. It's the perfect blend of heat and color and sophistication.

I don't think I'll ever get over that initial trepidation when I'm opening a cover file because the cover embodies so much of our hopes and dreams for a book. But I'm beginning to think cover artists are mind readers. Or, at the very least, wizards.

So tell me, what it is about a cover that grabs your attention?

On Book Covers

Hi again!

It's been a while since I last posted as I switched with someone else because I had a deadline looming.  A deadline that I'm happy to say has just been met...late last night just met.  I think we're on track now and A PUG'S TALE (look it's already on Amazon!) will be out June 7, 2011.

I got a look at a first draft of the cover about a month ago, and it's so wonderful. Pugs, on the steps of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.  I'd love to post it here but since they're making a few changes, it's best to wait lest the non-final one get loose on the internets.  In the meantime, here's three other covers I really love:

Next time: mine.

See you soon,

Alison
www.alisonpace.com
www.twitter.com/alisonpace
www.facebook.com/alisonpacebooks

The Book and Writing Sites We Love

Girlfriends chime in on their favs:


I love literary agent Nathan Bransford's site. He has such great posts
on writing and helpful info on publishing. Unfortunately, he announced on Friday that he's moving into another job. He is keeping the blog
going and there is a ton of great stuff in the archives, so have a
look:

http://blog.nathanbransford.com/

Roberta Isleib

http://www.mediabistro.com/galleycat/ Galleycat blog not only keeps me up on all the latest publishing news, but it also has illuminating author interviews and doles out great advice. For example, I ended up buying the $700 JetBlue All You Can Jet Pass, because the Galleycat editor suggested (quite rightly) that it'd be a great way to do an impromptu Fall book tour. Seriously, this site is brilliant, practical, and delightfully snark-free.

Ernessa T. Carter


BookBalloon for reading: http://www.bookballoon.com/

BackSpace for writing/publishing:
http://www.bksp.org/

Lauren Baratz-Logsted


Here are some of my favorite haunts on the Web for scoop on publishing info and book news (and I'm sure I'm forgetting something with my severe case of "deadline brain"):

PubRants

http://pubrants.blogspot.com/

Chick Lit Central (which actually has a lovely review of Melissa Senate's THE LOVE GODDESS' COOKING SCHOOL up today!)

http://chicklitcentraltheblog.blogspot.com/

Chick Lit Club

http://chicklitclub.com/

Book Club Girl

http://www.bookclubgirl.com/

Book Club Queen

http://www.book-club-queen.com/

Susan McBride

 For writing and learning how to structure your novel, I'm pretty obsessed with Alexandra Sokoloff's blog, The Dark Salon (http://thedarksalon.blogspot.com/ ). Once you're finished with your novel and are ready for industry tips, Allison Winn Scotch's blog, Ask Allison, is the place to be. (http://www.allisonwinn.com/ask-allison/ ) I recommend her site to everyone looking to break into publishing.

Brenda Janowitz

LiveJournal (tons of YA writers, and you can "friends-lock" posts)

http://thebookshelfmuse.blogspot.com/2008/01/introducing-thesaurus-thursdays.html (genius idea: an emotional thesaurus)

http://www.stereomood.com/ for free streaming music while I'm writing

April Henry

Though there are countless writer/publishing sites and blogs that I enjoy, the ones I go to most often are:

1. Beyond The Margins. http://beyondthemargins.com/

3. Library Journal. http://www.libraryjournal.com/

2. Publishers Marketplace. http://www.publishersmarketplace.com/

Beth Hoffman

My two favorite online stops for helping writers are Blake Snyder's Save the Cat site (http://www.blakesnyer.com/ ) and Michael Hauge's Screenplay Mastery site (http://www.screenplaymastery.com/ ).

~Marilyn Brant


My favorite writing teacher Leslie Pietrzyk has an amazing blog at http://www.workinprogressinprogress.blogspot.com/

I love group blogs and three of my favorites are A Good Blog is Hard to Find which I founded and which Kathy Patrick aka Pulpwood Queen now heads: http://southernauthors.blogspot.com/ . Also Writer Unboxed http://writerunboxed.com/  and Muderati http://www.murderati.com/

I just discovered this one for reviews: http://bookfinds.com/blog/

And for great storytelling tips I love http://storyfix.com/

Karin Gillespie

What are your favorites? Let us know.

Girlfriend News


Sarah Pekkanen has a great article on the power of the new girlfriend  network

Deborah Leblanc has a new novel out called Wolfen.

 Ernessa T Carter will read and speak at CSULA on Monday, Nov. 15:
And in the link love departmente,  a great in-depth article on James Frey’s new book packaging biz.

Oh My Achin'...

“What’re you in for?” I asked an acquaintance I ran into while at physical therapy the other day.

“Bum hip,” she said, hobbling toward me as she winced. “You?”

“More like what am I not in for,” I groaned, pointing to my swollen knee and rubbing my aching lower back.

Seems I’m doomed to serve a life sentence in rehab (physical, mind you, not addiction-related), what with my perpetually disabled everything. And so far there are no signs of potential time off for good behavior. It’s gotten so bad, that I’ve had to triage my aching joints to capitalize on the hard-to-obtain appointments with the physical therapist to help mend my injuries-du-jour. I’d already had a standing date with a fabulous PT to work on my always-nagging lower back issues, but when I tore my meniscus (that’s in the knee, for all you age-related injury neophytes), all of a sudden the back issues had to take the back burner, in order to figure out how to work with a niggling knee problem instead. Like a medic on the war front, I’m dispatched to relegate the least of my injuries to the back, while refocusing on the worst of the worst just to get out of the line of fire and remain as intact as possible. Shame, too, because I always looked forward to my PT appointments for my hobbled back, as the therapist was masterful in loosening up those culprit hip flexor muscles that were causing my back to misbehave in the first place. And while the pleasure/pain factor was at a premium during that deep-tissue work (at times deep enough to nearly land me on the threshold of tears), the end results were worth the pain.

Sometimes I love physical therapy. Like when they hook you up to that fabulous e-stim and get your muscles tingling with the electrical zap being transmitted intra-bodily. Throw in one of those ultra-heated therapeutic warming pads and I’m sleeping like a baby in no time flat. But now the bum knee demands e-stim with ice, not such a stimulating event. Well, actually overly stimulating, as I sit there with my teeth chattering, watching my muscles jump involuntarily with the zap and counting the minutes till the torture is over.

Now, while all of this “kneecapping” (i.e. being cut off at the knees by physical limitations) is easily attributable to the lamentable deterioration of a body due to wear and tear (also known as aging, in layman’s terms), I fear that much of it is my own stupid fault: it’s thanks to me behaving as if I’m eighteen rather than not-quite-forty-eight. Refusing to accept that maybe kickboxing isn’t such a good idea at this point, for instance.

Although sometimes it’s due to other circumstances I should have controlled. Take, for instance, the Sam’s Club injuries. Who here hasn’t thrown out some bodily part while lugging an item far bigger than we need to purchase while shopping at Sam’s? Come to think of it, that’s how I originally threw my back out, years ago: hauling cases from shelf to cart, then cart to car, and finally car to home. Buying something in product-on-steroids volume that I don’t even need a case of, but only because it’s the only way you can purchase it for cheap: a gross of this, a palette of that and whammy, you’re wounded. The irony is that the cost savings of Sam’s Club acquisitions should go directly into the medical-insurance-physical-therapy fund, because guaranteed you’ll ultimately hurt something lugging that stuff around and need medical treatment for it, the cost of which will far exceed the ten percent you saved buying it there in the first place.

I’m convinced it’s no small coincidence that Sam’s Club sells bottles of Advil large enough to supply a small hospital for a month: most of their customers probably need the pills simply to ease the pain and inflammation from shopping-related physical damage. They might as well put Don’t Forget the Advil reminder poster at the exits, right by the little old folks who swipe those receipts with a highlighter marker to ensure no theft (God forbid the megalithic retail chain lose a buck or two along the way). I’m thinking the real theft is in Sam’s Club stealing my well-being away from me by forcing me to act in the capacity as a virtual longshoreman, hauling enormous cargo needlessly. Maybe Sam’s needs to contribute to my insurance bill at this point.

I remember as a child hearing my “elders” lament their age-related failings: the aches, the pains, the feet that hurt when rain was in the forecast. And I distinctly recall my smugly thinking at the time, “Well, if they’d only been more active and taken care of themselves they’d not be in this position.” Little did I know my cockiness would come back to bite me, dammit. More like chronically wound me. Trust me, I’m paying for it. And you know what they say about payback. Not only does it rhyme with witch, but it hurts like a rhymes-with-witch as well.

A little addendum to this: a day after my physical therapy appointment for my knee, my insurance informed me I had run out of allowable physical therapy appointments for the year. And so we limp along...



Please be sure to look me up at www.jennygardiner.net where you can link to my Twitter and Facebook pages as well!

In Which Sarah Displays Her New Book Cover, and Gets Confused

Writing can be such an isolating experience. There you are, tucked in a quiet corner of a coffee shop or sitting at your kitchen table in the wee hours of the morning while the kids sleep, with nothing but the critical voices that live inside your head for company. (“Don’t you think it’s highly possible that your editor might hate this?” “Um, that might be the worst line you’ve ever written….  Ooh, actually, that one is.”)

Which is why I can’t get enough of websites about writing and publishing. I scroll through them every day, sometimes lurking, sometimes engaging in discussions in the comment thread. I admit it: I’m addicted.

If you’re trying to find an agent, websites are a goldmine. If you’ve got a question – anything from how to fire an agent to the best way to begin a query letter to how much a typical author makes in royalties - you’ll find answers. You’ll stop wondering about whether other authors struggle with saggy middles (and by this I mean the mid-section of their books, not their bodies, and am in no way feeling self-conscious about all those medicinally necessary chocolate-chip scones I’ve eaten at coffee shops while trying to coax out the right words). 

Here are some of sites I can’t live without:

www.Allisonwinn.com This popular author’s blog is fresh, candid, and relevant. Allison posts three times a week and often takes questions from readers.

www.JAKonrath.com J.A. is one of the most prolific people I’ve ever met, and he’s completely transparent when it comes to topics like how much he earns as an author.

www.pubrants.blogspot.com Agent Kristin Nelson describes herself as nice Midwestern girl, but she also seems to be a pretty fierce agent. Sometimes she’ll deconstruct query letters to tell you precisely where they go off the tracks.

www.thedebutanteball.com I can’t close this list without listing a site that’s close to my heart. The Deb Ball was founded several years ago by Kristy Kiernan and a group of female debut authors, who blogged for a year – then handed off the reins to a new group of female debs. I was one of last year’s Debutante authors, and I love popping back to the site to catch up with the talented new group of authors.

Book bloggers are also some of the kindest, most supportive people in the world – and they’ve turned me on to dozens of books I never would’ve read otherwise (Mockingjay, anyone?). It’s impossible for me to list all the ones I love, but here are a few: www.bermudaonion.com, www.heylady.net, www.sheistoofondofbooks.com, www.myfriendamy.com, www.skrishnasbooks.com, www.devourerofbooks.com, www.chicklitisnotdead.com

Click on a few of these sites, if you haven’t already discovered them! 

(And my thanks to the organizer of this blog, Karin Gillespie, who told me that my boneheaded error in blogging about websites instead of Hollywood wasn’t really an error, since we can blog about anything we like. See, I was just being creative! Thinking outside the box!)

True confessions: I worked as a stand-in and extra on a few Hollywood movies, including Her Alibi starring Tom Selleck and the 80’s-one-name-model Paulina. You know, the one married to the so-ugly-he's-beautiful singer from the Cars. I met all of them, and can report that Tom is quite tall. Plus they feed people very well on Hollywood sets. Entire tables devoted to candy and snacks! It’s a little slice of heaven!

You Want Me to What?

Hmmmm. So. You say there was a time change?

There's a place called Hollywood?

It's nice to know that the world has continued to do it's thing during my descent into a post partum haze.

Not that I'm complaining. We've been blessed with a new baby boy and I couldn't be happier. I could, however, be more well rested and therefore able to think. Clearly. Scratch that. At all.

I love this picture of my new son, my third child, taken literally minutes after birth because while it isn't the most charming there is something wonderfully true about it. And I love true things.

One of the true things about life for me is that I spend (and did also after my other two births) my post partum period nursing a baby with a book in one hand. Books, quite like chocolate, so delight me and absorb me, that I find they survive me even through the rough times. If you know what I mean. If I can take a little literary license. (And if I can't do it on this blog, where can I?)

So while I have nothing actually to say that could possibly sound intelligent (and many unsavory things like: I change my shirt five times a day because I'm so SATURATED with milk--and those silly breast pads don't even work--and many other delightful, bodily truths that make men and more gentle sorts cringe), I'm throwing myself in with the lot of girlfriends who are reading and writing for love. And, occasionally, money.

I haven't been around the internet of late to share my favorite sites, but I do want to share the two books I took with me to the hospital for my third unmedicated labor. (This is a true thing also. Although this time around I very seriously considered medication. A lot of it. Because this time I KNEW what I was getting in to.) Nothing makes exhaustion sweeter than something funny to read. I had a great time with Elna Baker's The New York Regional Mormon Singles Halloween Dance. If a Mormon comedian can't make you laugh, no one will. I was laughing through my stitches!

Then I spent the first few days back at home with Celia Rivenbark's Belle Weather. Y'all, she is some funny lady.

Well, the girlfriends do it every time. Long live the lit that comes from the minds of women. Those who are lucky enough to still have minds that is....

I'm taking all suggestions for funny, survival reads. What, from the bookshelf, has made you laugh lately?

Samantha Wilde is the author of This Little Mommy Stayed Home, but, more importantly, the mother of three children, four, 2.5 and one month old. In her free time, she sleeps. Today she celebrates her second son's one month birthday (he was born 10-10-10!).

Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is?

by Hank Phillippi Ryan


Yes, we're talking about our favorite author sites, and I promise I'll get to that in a minute.

But first, what the heck time is it?

It’s a semi-annual (does that mean twice a year? Or is it biennial?) struggle. My brain simply will not handle it. Spring forward, fall back, yes, I understand that part. Every fall and spring we change the clocks here on the east coast in order to—what? Make it lighter in the morning and darker sooner? Whatever. I just can’t comprehend it.

My brain has fogged over this issue for years. I once anchored the weekend news in Atlanta, where we also switched to daylight savings. (Or something.) The weather guy turned to me on the anchor desk, and said, all serious, “Remember, Hank, this is the night the time changes.”

I looked at him, narrowing my eyes. “Well, actually.” I said. “The time doesn’t really change. The time stays the same. It’s a continuum, and the time just keeps relentlessly going. But WE change. We change the clocks. But the time, well, that stays the same.”

The next Monday I got called into the General Manager’s office. What was that time stuff all about? he asked. He was not happy. I tried to explain the time continuum to him, but he did not care.

“Listen,” he said. “That was ridiculous.”

(And then he said, and I promise you this is a direct quote.) “You’re gonna have to practice your ad libs.”

It’s not just the clock change thing that flummoxes me. It’s time zones.

There was the time my cat was at the vet. I was supposed to call the vet by 6 pm to get the update on Lola’s condition. But there had been breaking news, and by the time I was off the air, it was past 6.

Rats, I thought. I’ve missed talking to the vet. But then, I realized I had a solution. I thought “My boyfriend is in California. And there it’s only 3 pm! So HE could call!”

It took me a few moments to realize the flaw in that.

And now , today, we change the clocks. At least, some of them. I’m even more completely confused, because the automatic clocks, the ones connected to the computer and the cable TV, change themselves. (Don’t they? What time is it now, anyway?) The battery-operated one in my bathroom and the antiquated one on the oven, I have to change myself.

But then there was the year that my husband changed all the clocks. But I didn’t know that. So I decided to change them, too. Which I did. So that made us two hours off. Behind. Or ahead. Or maybe we were the same.

I have no idea.

Is this a problem of Einsteinian proportions? Or is it just me?

************I promised author sites.

 Ah, yes, The Lipstick Chronicles. http://www.thelipstickchronicles.blogspot.com/
 Jungle Red Writers. http://www.jungleredwriters.com/  And Femmes Fatales. http://femmesfatales.typepad.com/
   I say this, not only because they are powerhouse sites with amamzing authors, but because I am lucky enough to be part of them.  And if you check them out--I'll give away a free book from among the commenters! Just mention the Girlfriends...see all the perks you get from being here?

Other faves:

http://1stturningpoint.com/?page_id=7   Terrific and smart promo tips

http://meanderingsandmuses.blogspot.com/  Everyone who's anyone in mystery and thriller world.

There are SO many more--which ones do YOU love?

(And oh! PEROOZAL!  Listen, anyone who is an author, you MUST check this out.  http://www.peroozal.com/  Getting in on the ground floor is a must--it's still in beta testing. Check it out, email me. You'll love it.)